The scientific tourist #110 — the track to 34

Let’s start with the calendar. Today’s the seventh anniversary of the loss of the space shuttle Columbia during re-entry. Last Thursday, January 28th, was the anniversary of the 1986 loss of the space shuttle Challenger in a launch explosion. And the 27th was the anniversary of the 1967 Apollo 1 on-pad fire that killed its astronauts during a pre-launch test. This picture is of the base of the launch pad (pad 34) that was the site of the Apollo 1 fire.

So it’s more than a bit ironic that the U.S. crewed space program may get closed out (or at least, radically reshaped) today — by a turn of events far more prosaic than a catastrophic accident. Stay tuned…